Brum (TV series)

Did You Know?

• A coin-operated kiddie ride of Brum was made by Amutec Ltd, with versions using the original theme song or the rebooted closing credits song 'Brum Gets Things Done'.
• The third series was launched internationally at MIPCOM on 7 October 2001, where the Australian Broadcasting Corporation acquired Australian broadcast rights.
• Ragdoll renewed Video Collection International's home video deal on 12 June 2001 for seven years.

Plot and setting

Brum follows a small, sentient yellow vintage car who ventures out into the Big Town when his owner is not looking, experiencing various adventures. Each episode begins and ends with Brum leaving the other cars in the motoring museum and returning after his exploits. The series uses mime and off-screen narration, with Brum expressing himself through mechanical actions such as opening his doors and bonnet, bobbing his suspension, and flashing his lights. The name "Brum" is a contraction of "Brummagem," a colloquial name for Birmingham, where most Big Town scenes were filmed, though the series makes no direct mention of the city. The car itself is a half-scale replica of a late-1920s Austin 7 Chummy convertible, designed and built by Rex Garrod, and is housed at the Cotswold Motoring Museum in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, where the opening and closing sequences were filmed. Each series has its own background music; series 1–2 shared introduction music with different instruments in series 2, while series 3–5 used a jazzy score with a new title sequence directed by Nigel P. Harris.

Characters

Mike Cavanagh, who owned the Cotswold Motoring Museum until 1999 and passed away in 2021, played the Museum Owner. Shirley-Anne Bohm portrayed the Lollipop Lady, who assists pedestrians and Brum with road safety in every second-series episode. Deborah Grant played WPC Truncheon, Big Town’s police officer. Brian Wilson and Lesley Stanier were Mr. and Mrs. La-Di-Dah, a posh married couple in the second series. Mark Barnsley, Zoey Foley O’Neill, and Theresa O’Malley played the friendly but absent-minded Mr. and Mrs. Doolally across the first two series. Catherine Mathers played Vicky Spoon, Brum’s special friend in the second series. Hugo Whyte played Micky Mender, a handyman. Other characters include Two Big Town Bullies (Shazad Mahmood and Georgina Treharne), the Scrap Dealers (Dave Evans and Mark Walter), the Newspaper Boy (Daniel Brocklebank), Traffic Policeman (Mark Powlett), Granny Slippers (Linda Kerr Scott), Visiting Man (Jos Houben), Mr. Brillo (Robert Thirtle), and Gorgeous Gordon (Enoch White).

Episodes

The first series of Brum consisted of 13 episodes broadcast from 26 September to 19 December 1991, including titles such as "Brum to the Rescue," "Brum and the Kite," and "Brum at the Seaside." The second series, first broadcast on Children's BBC in October 1994, also comprised 13 episodes with a runtime of 15 minutes each, narrated again by Toyah Willcox. Episodes included "Brum and the Helicopter," "Brum at a Wedding," and "Brum and the Rascally Robber." Most episodes of the second series were later edited by the BBC in the late 1990s to 10 minutes to match the first series' runtime, and these edited versions were broadcast until 2001. The third series introduced a new format with Brum as a superhero car, featuring child narrators instead of an adult narrator, and each episode ended with the song "Brum Gets Things Done." Forty episodes of the third series were broadcast across 2001 and 2002 on Children's BBC and CBeebies, though 80 episodes had initially been planned. The Bag of Gags are short episodes included on UK DVD releases and in half-hour versions of series 3, focusing on comedy and slapstick without narration.

UK VHS/DVD releases

Numerous VHS and DVD releases of Brum were issued in the UK, beginning with "Brum - Rescue and Other Stories" in 1991 and "Brum - Wheels and Other Stories" in 1992. Other VHS releases included "Learn with Brum: Safari Park and other stories" (1992), "Brum: Stilts, Seaside & Rescue" (1994), and "Brum - Bumper Special: Seaside and 9 Other Stories" (1993). The series saw multiple releases in the 1990s and early 2000s, such as "Brum and the Helicopter and Other stories" (1994), "Brum - The Big Chase and other stories" (1995), and "Brum - The Naughty Kitten and Other Stories" (1995). DVD releases began in the 2000s, including "Brum: Airport and Other Stories" (2001), "Brum: Snow Thieves and Other Stories" (2002), and "Brum: Runaway Statue" (2002 VHS, 2004 DVD). "The Very Best of Brum" (2004) DVD is the only home media release to feature the episode "Brum and the Pickpocket" as a bonus episode, which was unavailable on VHS.